


no i didn't want this throne

by raikkonen (armario)



Series: forget the poems of saints and ghosts [3]
Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Complicated Relationships, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Eating Disorders, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-22
Updated: 2019-10-22
Packaged: 2020-12-28 07:38:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21133067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/armario/pseuds/raikkonen
Summary: If Heaven was real, his rival was probably laughing at him.Are you crying, Max? Come on.





	no i didn't want this throne

**Author's Note:**

> hey everyone. this is the final part to this series. i may write other eating disorder related fic, but this is the end of this particular series. i appreciate the comments i've received but begging for a happy ending is just unrealistic.

They were all about to leave when they're told what's happened. A choking silence descends over them. He looks round at the pale, drawn faces of his colleagues, minus the only one who matters. This is getting to all of them. All of them know exactly who they lost today. What kind of person the world has lost.

Those who saw this coming are blank-faced and stoic; refusing to express their grief in guilty self-punishment. There are some silent tears.

Pierre gets up and leaves.

Max is stuck in 2012, for some reason. His brain is playing a montage of all the moments he can remember from their karting days. He's struggling to equate that fiery kid with the stupid long hair and the weird accent with the man who died on the day he won the championship.

For his family, the best news, followed by the worst news. Max cannot imagine the kind of pain this will bring.

No one speaks. What is there to say?

They can work it out without details. In retrospect, this was always going to happen.

He thinks of the ripple effect that this is having on all of them, and for some of them, for Daniel, it's only happening all over again.

He doesn't know what to do; what to say. He's watching Daniel fall apart and yet his own limbs feel heavy and numb, the shock spreading through him like a slow-acting drug.

The thing- the person- that's driven them apart, may have to bring them back together.

Max sits down next to him. He wants to take Daniel's hand but he grimly realises he's not what Daniel wants. Not anymore.

He was fearful and hesitant and angry. Daniel wanted unfiltered reciprocation. _Someone_ was better suited to it.

Max drowns in memories, shouting matches and cold wars where they went weeks without speaking. He'd agreed they could still be friends, but seeing Daniel with Charles of all people overwhelmed him with a bitter regret.

Sometimes, Charles looked uncomfortable. Almost guilty.

Other times- usually when Max had outpaced him- the malice in his eyes made Max's blood run cold in fear, and hot in burning anger.

Charles could have had anyone. Max always kept his mind firmly away from appreciating Charles' 'aesthetic qualities' but he'd be stupid to pretend he couldn't see them.

He could have had anyone, but he had to go after Daniel. And there's only one reason for that.

Max knows firsthand that Daniel is the world's most effective antidepressant when he wants to be; when he chooses you. So perhaps Daniel really did bring his own unique brand of comfort, and this was never another of Charles' games.

Or maybe the guilt is making him downplay Charles' capacity for cruelty.

Charles was just an empty shell. Empty of food, empty of emotion. He was desperate to feel something, and so he chased victory as he chased death. Anyone who got in the way of those things was his enemy.

Max saw through him more than anyone else ever did. There may have been an element of real vulnerability, but most of all, he was doing this to hurt Max; his rival.

It was like Charles was giving him a masterclass in what Daniel wanted in a relationship. Everything that Max was too scared to commit to.

Charles saw how afraid he was to let himself love Daniel and stole him right from under Max's grasp. It was too easy. Daniel has never been able to resist trying to fix broken things.

Maybe Charles actually let him in, instead of putting up the fortress walls that Max had.

There's something a thousand times worse about this.

A crash is sudden. Unforeseeable and accidental. One second, you're alive, the next, the light leaves your eyes. You can try and examine how things went wrong and what to do to avoid future accidents, but it's difficult to pin the blame.

What happened to Charles was a long, slow, insidious process.

What hurts so much is that it was visible. It was common knowledge that Charles was suffering from the most deadly eating disorder. It was common knowledge that Charles had no regard for his own life.

They'd watched it happen and done nothing. Seb had tried, and made things worse.

"There was nothing you could have done," Max murmurs.

_"Bullshit,"_ Daniel tells him. His eyes are wet with tears.

Max doesn't try to argue.

They shouldn't have backed down after Charles got hospitalized. It wouldn't matter if Charles hated them; as long as he was alive. He just needed some time away, to learn to care for himself and discover other priorities outside of racing. He would be okay. He could come back after a year, a couple of years. He wouldn't lose his touch.

They shied away from upsetting him. They saw how he treated Seb, they saw what concern had done to him. It made everything worse, so they just backed off, pretended he wasn't wasting away, and waited for the day he'd miraculously snap out of it.

It kills him to think of all the times he should have pried further. When Charles told him to stop acting like he was made of glass; handle with care, he listened. He_ listened_ to the fucking idiot.

He wishes he hadn't spent so much time hating him. He has respect for how Charles survived starving, irritable, breathless, unsteady; somehow taking races every week.

People will write books about it. There'll be a movie.

And Max would do anything to turn back time and shake his hand. _I respect you._

But he can't. Because they didn't intervene and he will never see nor speak to Charles again. It feels like his other half is gone. Beneath all the confusion, the hatred, the jealousy, there was a connection. They were destined to fight forever, the two of them, and now his rival is gone, he's not whole anymore.

He's _angry_ Charles left him alone. He doesn't want an easy WDC now they're not fighting each other for it. He wants to race Charles until the day they both retire; bury the hatchet and leave Formula 1 as _friends._

The adrenaline is numbing his emotions right now, but he's dreading the emptiness that will set in. It's hasn't sunk in yet, but he has to get used to a world without Charles in it. A paddock without him. A career, and a life, without him. His innocent hopes for a lifelong friendship borne from their rivalry are dashed.

He can only console himself in the knowledge that at least Charles wouldn't have minded all this.

If Heaven was real, his rival was probably laughing at him._ Are you crying, Max? Come on._

To Charles, life had only ever been about winning. It took away everything else.

Grief, like food, settles heavily, weighing you down; but the taste of victory is light and sweet. And once you'd won, what was the point in hanging around?


End file.
